Stanley Cup fever is high. But soccer mania has bars, restaurants, even offices, making World Cup plans.

Summer Garden & Bar in Rockefeller Center hopes to score with local fans when the World Cup kicks off in Brazil. The party starts on June 12 with the opening game (Brazil vs. Croatia, 4 p.m. ET), which will be shown live on a massive TV screen. Players from the New York Red Bulls will be on hand during the broadcast, and the bar will serve a wide variety of caipirinhas, Brazil's national cocktail.

And that is just the beginning. Summer Garden will broadcast every single World Cup game—three a day—in its biggest effort ever to attract fans of one of the world's most important sporting events. It has even installed extra TVs for the month.

"We did a minimal push four years ago, but we've never done something like this," said Antonio Prontelli, the restaurant's chef. "Soccer is becoming a bigger craze in the United States; we're catching up to the rest of the world."

Of course, plenty of hockey fans will be cheering the New York Rangers in their battle with the Los Angeles Kings for the Stanley Cup, but the World Cup games will last all month. Summer Garden & Bar is one of the many sports bars and restaurants across New York getting ready for what they expect to be the biggest World Cup frenzy the city has seen yet.

Bars aren't the only businesses catching the fever. Local offices are setting up televisions so their soccer-crazed employees can watch the games without sneaking out of work. And a record number of New Yorkers are heading to Brazil to see the action live.

Long scoffed at by Americans for being a monotonous, low-scoring game, soccer is finally gaining in popularity. European league games are now broadcast on network television in prime time, and the fan base for Major League Soccer in the United States is skyrocketing, putting it in third place in average attendance, after football and baseball, according to U.S. Soccer.

The U.S. team's pre-World Cup send-off game against Turkey at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey on June 1 was in such hot demand that the 25,000 tickets had to be sold by lottery. Even a growing bribery scandal is unlikely to dampen enthusiasm.

Where the tickets went

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For the games in Brazil, the most popular World Cup in history, Americans have snapped up the most tickets—about 187,000—of any other nation outside the host country, according to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. That number is more than triple that of the third-highest country, Germany, which has bought 57,000 tickets to the games.

State by state, soccer fans in New York lead the searches for World Cup tickets on Viagogo, the largest ticket exchange.

"This year's World Cup has the largest number of tickets ever purchased from fans in the U.S., and frankly we're not surprised," said a spokesman for U.S. Soccer. "When you see these numbers and attendance at our MLS and national games, you realize that interest is growing more and more."

Robert Tuchman, president of Manhattan-based luxury-experiences firm Goviva, said people started contacting him three years ago about the World Cup. He is arranging trips to Brazil for more than 1,000 people, costing anywhere from $3,000 to $20,000—the most interest he has ever received for an event. Roughly 30% of his clients going to Brazil are from the tristate area, he said.

Part of the excitement around this World Cup, soccer fans say, is that it is in Brazil, widely considered to be the spiritual home of the sport. That has upped the excitement for die-hard fans. It is also expected to boost business even further at bars across the city because Brazilians, the third-largest tourist group in New York, spend more money than any visiting nationality, and many of them will be traveling here to avoid the craziness in their own country during the games.

"We receive a lot of Brazilian tourists at our restaurant, and we're hoping to be their place to watch the games," said a spokeswoman for Summer Garden & Bar.

Another plus for local businesses: Much of Brazil is only one hour ahead of New York, so all the games can be watched live. The last World Cup was in South Africa, so most of the games were rebroadcast.

"The timing is perfect," said Paddy McCarthy, owner of Nevada Smiths, a sports bar on Third Avenue. "The first game [most days] is at noon, so people can come for lunch and see it live."

Mr. McCarthy has two 20-foot screens and 25 50-inch TVs throughout his establishment. He isn't planning any special offers because he says he will reach his capacity of 375 every day throughout the month without doing a thing.

"People will be leaving their jobs, taking days off," he said. "They will come in just to watch the U.S. play Ghana for the first game and then find themselves staying for a second game."

Free drinks

The partners at Louro, a Portuguese restaurant on West 10th Street, are so pumped that they are buying a 100-inch projection TV to mount in their bar, and will open early each day so patrons can watch every game. They are going to serve special dishes, and when Portugal plays and scores a goal, they will offer shots on the house.

"We're investing thousands of dollars in this, with the hope of some return, obviously," said David Santos, chef and partner at Louro. "But it's far more a point of pride. The World Cup is such a special event that it really needs to be thought of that way."

Even offices throughout the city are bringing in big-screen TVs. The Door, a marketing firm, is going to broadcast every single game in its conference room and even serve Brazilian cocktails.

M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment, the sponsorship division of the advertising agency, is installing a big-screen TV in its conference room and one in its office that will be visible to all employees from their desks. The TVs will be on all day throughout the monthlong tournament, making it difficult to get much work done. On June 16, when the U.S. plays its first match, the company will have an office party.

"We are all huge sports fans and are very excited about the forthcoming World Cup," said Andrea Nirsimloo, senior account director at M&C Saatchi.